Navigating layers of injustice and invisibility

ONE OF THE FIRST STORIES ROYA TOLD IN HER conversation with Emerge gave a telling example of the context of her work in Azerbaijan: ‘One time I went to the police station to advocate for a gig worker whose rights had been violated, and the police investigator told me given my age (I was 21 at the time), instead of “doing such things”, I should instead marry his son. As a young woman, my presence is ignored or misunderstood in these situations. And just last week, I helped a domestic violence victim by speaking directly to her abusive ex-partner, who tried to intimidate me.’

She went on to describe how ‘within civil society work, you cannot speak out loud about many topics, otherwise you can easily become the target of state institutions.’

Roya is just 23 years old, and there are already many chapters to her life story, including several which she asked us to not yet publish due to safety concerns.

A human rights activist and trained lawyer, with an energetic, passionate demeanor, she further described the backdrop to everyday life in Azerbaijan as one in which there is a constitution guaranteeing a secular country, but a deeply ingrained conservatism as to girls’ education and career prospects: ‘in practice, the vast majority of families are not happy about the career development or success of their girls.’

‘Thankfully, I’ve been able to break some of these barriers. My parents eventually shifted their perspective on this topic but it required a lot of effort. My family didn’t go to university or even have a basic education,’ she recounted.

Seeing corruption throughout her childhood and adolescence — once she discovered that parents of a classmate had paid the school director to guarantee better marks for their child — led her to develop a strong reaction to injustices, but she was uncertain as to how to channel this energy. 

Later, she realised she was not alone: ‘At first, I thought I was the only one who cared about fairness.’ But attending a training for young human rights defenders became a turning point. ‘They were later arrested,’ she adds, referring to the organizers of the event. ‘But hearing them and lawyers speak—that was the moment I saw what professionalism could really look like.’

These formative experiences while still a university student led Roya to work at Simple Law, an Azerbaijani grassroots legal education organization mainly focused on labour and social security law, alongside the Social Rights Center. ‘I always had these moral values, but then I realised I could make them practical,’ she recalled. Her responsibilities continued to increase as she became a program manager for the platform.

Her work also evolved to include environmental activism with the Ecobill initiative. ‘People in Azerbaijan often say they care about the environment, but their actions don’t reflect that. When we launched our initiative, there were no independent environmental law projects. So we created one.’ 

She recalls visiting remote villages to document industrial pollution. ‘The places were unlivable, and smelled terrible. Pigs were roaming in toxic waste, and government officials did nothing.’ Despite the risks, Roya continued. ‘I was only 21, going to local officials, all male, all much older. But eventually they took me seriously. Not because I was an important person, but because I was educated and knew how to articulate my rights.’

Civic and legal education goes viral

To further raise awareness, Roya started making videos about rights violations and educating the population about their rights under Azerbaijani legislation. The Simple Law social media accounts grew fast, and brought widespread recognition for ordinary citizens facing legal challenges. ‘We used humour and story-telling to make the videos about these legal topics engaging. Soon we had 90,000 followers. Every day, we were answering over 100 questions from people with disabilities, victims of gender-based violence, those without money. ’

Roya realised that legal education could happen more broadly through other channels besides in a university setting. ‘Human rights aren’t interesting…unless you make them interesting,’ she says. 

After Azerbaijan’s civil society crackdown created safety risks, her team made the difficult decision to shut down Simple Law. She now continues her civic work on TikTok and Instagram—reframing legal literacy as engaging and entertaining. She keeps the humorous aspect, just as before, playing different characters or acting like a TV presenter.

‘My grandma is 70 and she watches my TikTok videos, such as the one I made on pension access,’ she says. That bridge—between digital formats and authentic lived experiences—is where she sees the greatest potential impact.

The videos are both a creative outlet and strategic, as she believes raising collective awareness of rights and environmental degradation can alter civic society for the better, and create accountability from officials. 

Barriers to coherence

When we asked Roya about barriers to coherence in her work, she first named structural blockages: “The Azerbaijani government pulled out of Erasmus+, which reduces educational opportunities for youth, and there are barely any physical spaces for young people to convene. Most spaces are government-run and uninspiring.’

She continues, ‘Many young people don’t have role models they can relate to. When they see me talk about community issues, they get inspired to act, but in their daily life there are few people to follow in their immediate communities.’ 

And while she is an advocate for using social media to educate the public on their legal rights, she described LinkedIn as a ‘fake world which breeds competition, not community.’  She sees how forms of self-promotion detract from healthy coherence amongst her peers. ‘It fuels competition and feelings of inadequacy. People see posts about scholarships or travel and their first impression is often, “why didn’t I get that?”’  She sees this as leading to a breakdown in trust and sense of community.

Moreover, the lack of infrastructure and opportunities can make staying in the country an unappealing prospect: ‘Most people end up in corporate or state jobs with limited opportunities.’ Her own time in Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court left her disillusioned:  ‘All we did was paperwork. There was no space for real development. There are few grassroots initiatives like Simple Law that talk about real issues, and their fate is often precarious.’

‘Human rights education should be emotional and creative’

‘I’ve seen a real desire to grow amongst my peers and Azerbaijani youth who are even younger than me, but they need resources and opportunities.’

Roya has taken it upon herself to provide some of these resources by developing her own online curriculum and webinars on subjects from legal rights to community service to finding career paths. She noted that two hundred people joined a recent webinar she led on self-development at 9pm, and most stayed until the very end. ‘That tells me people want to learn.’

‘I believe human rights education should be emotional and creative. I also believe civil society work should be emotional and creative. Too many organizations rely on outdated training methods like lectures. Interactive formats—like simulations or mock trials—are much more effective.’

She also wants to emphasize an alternative narrative to that of many of those working in civil society in Azerbaijan today, who have told her that ‘they don't have hope in the future of Azerbaijan, because everyone is getting arrested.’ She continues, ‘yes, not everything is going well, but from my practice I see that people change. Really there is this positive development that I’ve witnessed over the last years of work.’

Returning to her earlier story of turning her moral values into ‘practical’ work, she reflects on this moment as being one of lived coherence: ‘I understood that I needed to have these values not only internally, but also make them externally realized and practical. And in those early activities I saw that I was not alone. That was coherence for me, and that brought us together.’

Next month Roya will travel to New York to start a fully-funded LLM at NYU Law School as a Hauser Global Scholar. She hopes she can nurture and inspire leadership amongst other younger activists and grassroots civil society actors from abroad, despite having had to flee her country. 

She leaves us with her reflections on what is to come:  ‘I believe good things will happen, I just don’t know when. But my main aspiration is to get a better education, because I believe education is a great tool. I already do lots of community work, but when I achieve this next step of my education it will shape my work and multiply its effects in the world.’